Tampa Bay Buccaneers Postgame Quotes - Sunday, December 27, 2015

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS POSTGAME QUOTESSUNDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2015

HEAD COACH LOVIE SMITH

(Opening statement) “I thought we would play a lot better than we did today. It’s tough to win when you do some of the things we did out there – turnovers, starting off with that. Two fumbles, one really put them in position, we threw an interception in the end zone. It’s tough duty. We had momentum early. That penalty when we got the interception really put us on our heels and we never really recovered after that. [I] have to give them credit. They controlled the ball. They had 15 or so more minutes [of possession]. It’s going to be tough to win when you play ball like that. As far as the reason why, we had a lot of reasons to play well. I thought we practiced well. I thought we were prepared, but again, normally you have a loss when you play like that.”

(On if quarterback Jameis Winston was trying to throw a touchdown or throw the ball away when the ball was intercepted) “I can’t tell you. You can’t throw it, period. He wasn’t trying to throw it to them, for sure. Bad play on our part.”

(On having lost three games in a row at the end of the season) “Well we’re disappointed [about this game]. We’re going to talk about this one right now. We’re not going to talk about our wins that we had before. We’re just going to talk about this loss. That’s disappointing because we are a lot better football team than that. What it says about our team is that if you turn the ball over like that and you make a couple critical mistakes on the other end, you have an outcome like that. Let’s not group it all together. This is a better football team. Today we didn’t play our best ball. Let’s keep them separate.”

(On running back Doug Martin’s two fumbles and if that’s the part of his game he needs to improve) “Yes, but that’s not something he’s done a lot of lately. Doug Martin has had an outstanding season. He didn’t play his best ball today. That’s why we just have to look at it like that. Some days you just don’t have it and it really put our team in a whole, simple as that. It’s about us bouncing back next week. That’s the taste that we’ll have in our mouths of how we play our last football game. This one won’t be it.”

(On if he is surprised about how Chicago was able to run the football) “Yes I am. They shouldn’t be able to. We weren’t set up in a lot of situations where we couldn’t stop the run. We should play the run a lot better than that, yes.”

(On not having a takeaway) “We got one and a penalty stopped us, but on record right now we don’t have enough, No, [I] don’t know the answer why. It’s more than just putting an emphasis on it. It’s not like we had a lot of opportunities to intercept the ball. They just haven’t come for whatever reason. It’s something we’ll have to continue to try to figure out.”

(On the Bears’ defense holding Martin to 49 rushing yards) “These questions you’re asking, we would have done something about it out there if we knew why. We just have to give them the credit for how they played. These are normally situations where – everyone has tried to stop our running game all year and we continued to [run the ball] and we had success doing it. Whatever the reason was today, we were unable to get it done. Again, I’m just going to say that it was good play on their part.”

(On tackle Demar Dotson starting over Gosder Cherilus) “Demar is a good football player. It’s not like he lost his job or anything like that. Circumstances didn’t let him get a lot of reps this season and we wanted to give him a long look this week. We’ll never put someone in the starting lineup if we feel like there is going to be a major drop-off. That’s why we went with him today.”

(On if he was concerned about Winston’s health after the hit he took on the long pass to tight end Cameron Brate) “Not very concerned. I mean if he wasn’t able to go we would have kept him out. You’re going to take some hits. I think any time a quarterback takes a solid hit you’re going to feel it a little bit. It’s not like there’s a threat of injury or anything like that when we put him back out there. He was good to go.”

(On Winston’s performance today and if he progressed) “Yes, right now we’re talking about today. It’s not a great taste in our mouth on how any of us played today, but yes. Jameis is our future and our future is bright. He is one of the reasons why our future will play out that way. Again, right now there’s disappointment and that’s about it.”

(On Winston trying to make a play when throwing an interception on the goal line) “I think there’s a big difference when you throw [a pass] like Cameron Brate’s – when you throw it up. That’s a good punt. It’s a little different when you are in the red zone and you have at least a field goal right there. Circumstances will allow you to be a little more aggressive. That wasn’t one of them.”

QUARTERBACK JAMEIS WINSTON

(On the third quarter interception and if he was just trying to make a play in the end zone) “You said it. Trying to get somebody to make a play in the end zone.”

(On the play of running back Doug Martin) “He’s still the best back in the NFL, and you better believe it.”

(On if the past three weeks have taken away the momentum from when the team was 6-6) “We’ve just got to bounce back. It’s the NFL; sometimes this stuff happens. Obviously, we don’t want it to happen to us, but it happened. We’ve got to be accountable and every one of those games, it’s our fault. You can pick two or three plays to say, ‘This could’ve changed the game,’ and that’s what this game comes down to and that comes in my development as a quarterback, especially today – just making the throw. If you want to be great, if you want to have a great team, you’ve got to make every single play count.”

(On what he learned from today’s game) “It’s just another game of football. We’ve got to make plays. That’s been the same thing with us the whole year. Got to make plays, can’t turn the football over. We didn’t take care of the football today, especially me, and we’ve got to bounce back. We’ve got to learn from that, got to play against the best team in the league next week.”

(On how he felt after being hit on the 46-yard completion to tight end Cameron Brate) “I was great. I was happy that Cam made a heck of a play. I looked back at the ref; I mean, I don’t know how many times you’re going get hit to the head and [aren’t] going to get a call, but that’s how it is. That’s how it is. People playing hard, we’re playing fast, and I’ve just got to lock in and can’t turn the football over in the red zone. That’s it – that’s all on me.”

(On if he thought there was a late hit) “I mean, I thought it was but I’m not a ref. I can’t speak on them. [The Bears] did a great job today, and we can’t let other people determine the outcome of the game. As a player, my job is to play football. Their job is to do what they do.”

(On his 43-yard touchdown pass to Austin Seferian-Jenkins at the end of the game) “It just shows the personnel that we have. Austin made two big catches for us today and he wanted it. He went up there and boxed the guy out and made the play. He’s a great player and that’s what he does.”

(On if completing deep passes is something he wants to work on in the offseason) “That’s something that I work on every day at practice, and that’s what I was just talking about – making the plays. If I want to be good in this league I have to make those throws, and the good quarterbacks in the league make those throws and complete those throws. So, like I said, that’s a learning tool for me. I’ve got to make those throws. When you’ve got Mike Evans, and arguably one of the fastest guys on our team [Donteea Dye] wide open, you’ve got to put it in the bread basket and those have got to be touchdowns.”

(On if there was a mix-up of the cadence with center Joe Hawley who “had a couple bad snaps”) “He had one bad snap because he’s out there working his tail off and he’s sweating and going against 300-pound linemen and he sweats a little bit. We are playing in Tampa Bay so it gets kind of humid. I think the field, actually, the way they put the ball, guys – chopped up grass everywhere – so I commend him on the snaps that he does make. Is that one bad snap on the year? I think it is. It’s the game of football, some things happen. You can’t learn from that, but he’s not going to do it again. That’s just a freak thing.”

(On facing the 14-1 Carolina Panthers next week) “I mean, we’ve just got to win. I want this team to win. Any time somebody’s talking about someone losing, they’re happy that somebody’s losing, I want to be on that side of the field – and I think we’re capable of that. They’re having a great year, so one loss – I guarantee you, they’re not worried about that. They’re going to come and try to take our heads off like they’ve been playing well all year, so we’ve got to come and compete. That’s the mentality that we have to change here at Tampa Bay. We want people to be talking about, ‘Oh, did you know Tampa Bay lost today?’ and be happy that we lost. You know, that’s a good thing, because that means that we’re winning a lot of games. So, when we get to that point where people are happy that we’re losing games, I think we’re going to be set. We’re going to be in the playoffs and we’re going to be winning a lot of games.”

(On what Chicago was doing defensively to cause Tampa Bay’s struggles on third down) “When you’re trying to convert on third-and-15, third-and-20, it makes the level of difficulty hard. And that situation, we beat ourselves. We had two penalties that hurt us. Thank God for Mike [Evans] making a great play, knocking that ball that I threw straight to the dude, but it hurts our chances when we’re trying to convert from third-and-15, third-and-20. We’ve been a great third down team for the year. These last three weeks we haven’t converted on third down over 50 percent – we lost the last three games. I take full responsibility for that. We’ve got to convert, but we also can’t hurt ourselves and put ourselves in those situations.

(On the play of running back Charles Sims) “You all can attest to me, every time I’m in here and you all talk about Doug [Martin] and Doug having a great game, the next thing that comes out of my mouth is ‘Charles Sims is a great complement to Doug Martin.’ Those two guys make our team go. When they’re playing a great game, we’re doing good. On that drive, it was Doug and Charles Sims. That’s our identity. We give everybody the ball, everybody has to make plays for us, I have to be on top of my game – the offensive line, they’ve been solid the whole year. So it’s up to me and the skill [players] to help us move and win the games.”

(On Sims’ 50-yard touchdown reception) “He’s going to make the catches. Cam Brate, same thing. That’s why [offensive coordinator] Coach Koetter, he tells me, ‘Let these guys make plays,’ and that’s why it goes back to the deep balls. I’ve got to give them a chance to make a play for us.”

DEFENSIVE END WILLIAM GHOLSTON

(On what the defense needs to do to improve) “We really just got to execute when we need to and make the plays that we got. [There were] a couple balls in there that we didn’t catch or sometimes we didn’t stop the run from gaining too many yards.”

(On if his interception being nullified by penalty took the air out of the defense’s sails) “I don’t think so, I think we got quite a few three-and-outs once we got our adjustments in.”

(On if the defense executed its game plan early) “There’s a lot of things that we could have done better, as far as our game plan. We did follow it through, we did make some key stops and we did get our hands on to bat some stuff down a couple times. We need to capitalize more.”

(On how tough it is to lose the home finale) “We just have to give [the fans] something good to watch, let them know that next year is going to be different. Next year, we are going to try to push with our momentum. Today we didn’t take the win home.”

(On how frustrated it is to have penalties or the three turnovers and allowing the opponent to score) “Like I was saying early, we have to capitalize when we get the ball. We got to get the ball out and that’s something that our defense preaches, to get the ball out.”

(On the Bears’ running backs three running backs) “All three of them are good backs and they schemed us just like we schemed them and sometimes they made the play when we should have made the play.”

RUNNING BACK CHARLES SIMS

(On his 50-yard touchdown reception) “Jameis did a great job scrambling and I just made a [guy] miss.”

(On how disappointing it was with three losses in a row after being 6-6) “Really disappointed, just got to finish man”

(On his touchdown) “I was just making a play. Jameis did a great job with, it was a good ball, and I just made a play on the ball.”

WIDE RECEIVER MIKE EVANS

(On the team performance) “We are a young team; we will be good in the future.

(On not winning the home finale) “We wanted to get a win, send our fans off with something good for next year. We wanted to quadruple our win total from last year, but that won’t happen. We won’t finish with a winning record or .500 so we were disappointed.”

DEFENSIVE END GERALD MCCOY

(On the loss putting a damper on a promising season) “Kind of, it’s not how we wanted to finish. We definitely wanted to finish with momentum. We have an opportunity to finish next week with a win, but you get one more home game, get the chance to give the fans a good taste in their mouth and that’s how you finish? It just goes to show we are not where we want to be yet.”

(On the interception that was nullified by penalty) “It was a screen, I was able to get some pressure, tip the ball and Will Gholston made a great play. It’s kind of what we been all year. We shoot ourselves in the foot with penalties.”

(On the focus of the defense winning the turnover margin) “Coach always shows the turnover margin and how huge it is. You go plus-three, you have a 95 percent chance of winning the game, so there it is right there.”

(On Doug Martin having a subpar day) “That’s the NFL, it happens. He’s resilient, but it’s our job as his teammates to make sure we hold him up. As dominant as he been all year, you have one bad day, there is no reason to hold his head. That just shows you’re human. We’re all human, we all have our moments and our time. One bad game doesn’t define it.”

RUNNING BACK DOUG MARTIN

(On the frustration of fumbling twice) “Right now it feels like a bad dream. That’s out of character for me to fumble the ball twice in one game. I’m embarrassed. It is frustrating. The stage was set for the rushing title, Pro Bowl and all that. I let the team down. I let the team down.”

(On if turnovers cost them the game) “Definitely, turnovers is why we couldn’t win the game. I think we had three turnovers. We can’t do that and win games. We emphasize that all the time. It’s easier to say that than do it. We just have to keep on practicing on not turning the ball over.”

(On if the Bears defense was making an effort to strip the ball) “The two fumbles that I had were helmet-to-ball contact, but that’s still no excuse. I still have to keep it tight to my body. They were doing what every defense does, strip the ball.”

(On if he is shocked that he had two fumbles when fumbling has not been a problem for him) “I am in shock. Like I said, I had everything to play for this game. I feel like I let the team down. It’s a tough one to swallow. We’re going to prepare for the Panthers next game.”